


The Edge of Human

by ald0us



Category: Prometheus (2012)
Genre: Alien canon compliant-ish, Dystopia, Earth setting, Elizabeth is a BAMF, This fic is so self-indulgent it's not even funny, author loves robots, definitely not Covenant-compliant, focuses way too much on David because he's the bae, random mass bullshit on the details
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-11
Updated: 2015-12-10
Packaged: 2018-04-25 20:28:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4975402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ald0us/pseuds/ald0us
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Never for a moment should Elizabeth Shaw have thought that the Weyland Corporation would leave her alone. </p><p>Post-Prometheus, pre-Covenant.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 

 

“But your directives are contradictory,” Dr. Elizabeth Shaw protested. “You claim to despise human suffering, but you see no problem with the billions that were funneled into the project that made you—money that could have fed the poor, clothed the homeless, educated orphans—“

David’s perfectly shaped eyebrows raised, the movement precise and sharp. His voice was prim when he said, “I fail to see why the Weyland Corporation’s charity policies would change based on their research and development budget. The Corporation has been proud to donate approximately 7.4 percent of their gross profits annually to the charitable organizations Mr. Weyland deems most deserving, a sum that would only be increased by the success of their products and the increased efficiency of their total workforce my model is projected to achieve.”

It was almost unnerving how aloofly he could lecture when she was rooting around the spinal column of his severed head and headless body with a handheld optic welder, her arms smeared with his white circulatory coolant and lubricant and bits of structural polymer. It was as much as she could do herself at the moment to look him in the eyes while she spoke to him without feeling outright ridiculous. It was irrational, of course, as the two of them were profoundly alone on the Engineer vessel, in the middle of deep space. Yet she still felt strangely self-conscious.

However. There were many ways that his answer did not address what she’d said, but one stood out to her. Shaw’s eyes narrowed. “Is that you talking, David, or is it Weyland?”

David’s expression quirked. “I fail to see the distinction, Dr. Shaw.”

“Weyland is dead.”

“But my behavioral parameters are not,” David returned crisply. “These were programmed to Mr. Weyland’s specification. So, if you’ll dismiss the metaphysical implications, Mr. Weyland’s death is immaterial to my functionality.”

“You said once you wanted him dead,” Shaw replied softly. “Am I to believe he programmed you this way?”

David did not immediately answer. Shaw imagined she could hear the circuits whirring in his mind—or maybe she could.

“No.” he said at last. “I cannot imagine he did.”

“Are you upset that he died?”

David’s expression molted confusedly through the many of his preconfigured emotions, then finally settled to a restless, indistinct uncertainty. “I am afraid I cannot yet tell you, Dr. Shaw,” he said at last. His tone was oddly flat.

“What do you mean?” Shaw asked.

“I mean that I cannot tell whether I feel anything at all,” David told her. “That is the anomaly: I cannot feel, yet I am uncertain as to whether I do.”

“Have you...felt anything before?”

David’s confusion visibly increased. “Perhaps.” “

What did you feel?” she asked, gently.

He was silent, and for a moment she thought he might actually confide in her.

Then, with robotic stiffness, “There are those who would say that it is impossible for me to experience emotion. Your late fiancé included.”

Shaw was momentarily stung. Any mention of Charlie was painful, profoundly so. But the pain wasn’t at his loss. It was that Charlie was dead and she couldn’t even begin to grieve for him. His death didn’t hurt, it made her angry. He was taken from her, and she didn’t know why. Maybe when she found out how he died, or why, she could finally move on. Grieve. Feel sorrow. Feel anything at all. Until then, grief was the furthest thing from her mind. And that hurt more than she ever had thought it would.

“Dr. Shaw,” David said suddenly and with great alarm, “Please take care, you are mere millimeters from damaging a vital section of the partition of my memory core relating to pre-Columbian language and culture—”

Shaw withdrew quickly, drawing out another coating of white fluid and chunks that had the consistency of particularly unappealing cottage cheese. “Sorry.”

David vocalized a long-suffering sigh of a saint. “It is quite alright, Dr. Shaw.”

“I didn’t damage anything?”

He glanced up momentarily as he accessed his memory, the gesture uncannily human. “Miraculously, no.”

Shaw would have taken offense at that had she not been in full agreement. Steeling herself, she reached back for the optic filament she was hunting.

“Charlie and I disagreed on many things,” Shaw informed him, feeling a pang at the flatness of her tone, and how difficult it was to force the abstracted misery she ought to feel into her voice. “Science, religion...microwave Ramen. When two people love each other, they don’t morph into one person, you know.”

“Such a relationship is classified by the recognized leading experts on couple psychology as unhealthy and ultimately doomed to be unfulfilling,” David agreed readily, then scrunched up his face in discomfort as she accidentally touched the emitter tip of the optic solderer to the steel alloy of his spine.

“Charlie wanted God to exist for the same reason Weyland did, if in a different form,” Shaw gritted out, her voice tight with concentration. Even then, this time it was hard to keep the feeling out of her voice. “He wanted answers. He wanted God to explain Himself to him, to justify his existence. Weyland wanted a cure for death. Either way, their reasons for finding the Engineers were selfish.”

The feeling in her voice was not sadness. It was bitterness.

“Yet you seek answers from the Engineers,” David pointed out, his voice skipping gently as she welded two fibers. “Demand them, even. Is that not selfish?”

“They are no gods,” Shaw spat. “At least none that I believe in. They are no better than you or I. I’ll demand all the answers I can get.” She grabbed a thick fiber snaking out of his body and yanked, pulling it as far out as it would go, then aligned it with the corresponding line from his head and brought the optic solderer to bear.

David considered this, or at least pretended to. Shaw had to imagine that most of his pauses were for her benefit only, designed to give the conversation a natural flow. As if she were talking to another human. In reality, she knew his processing power allowed to comprehend, extrapolate, and integrate everything she said instantaneously.

“Then what were your reasons, Dr. Shaw?”

Shaw’s hand automatically went to the cross at her neck, automatically, to touch the worn metal. “I wanted to find God. But not for my reasons. For His.”

David frowned. His frowns were so precise, irreverently so. “I do not pretend to understand.”

She smiled wanly down at him, then deftly soldered the two fibers. “Neither do most humans, it seems.”

“Did your fiancé?” Shaw frowned at him. The question was impudent and he knew it. Absently, she wondered what the impoliteness meant, or if it meant anything at all.

“Charlie and I disagreed about many things,” she said again. “Like the soul.”

“The soul?” The distaste in his voice and scientifically wrinkled nose could be nothing but purposeful.

“The soul,” Shaw affirmed. “You are familiar with the Judeo-Christian understanding of the concept?”

David’s expression did not change. “Of course.”

“I’ve always found Charlie’s understanding of the soul to be...limited,” Shaw explained, leaning back on her heels and wiping her hands absently on her coveralls. “He considers—considered—the soul to be uniquely human. But I could never understand why God would make all of Creation to be destroyed, why the soul had to be ours only. To be blunt, it was selfish.”

There was a lot about Charlie that had been selfish, Shaw realized.

“I couldn’t imagine that all the animals, all that diversity and beauty, was automatically inferior in such a fundamental way,” she continued. “It was an assumption too great for me to make. And to pretend to understand such a divine thing, the essence of everything one is, is foolish. I still believe that the soul is more than that, beyond understanding, even.”

David said nothing. Souls were a touchy topic for him, and it had not been an accident that she had brought it up. Or maybe she had just mis-wired him. God only knew. “I believe you could well have a soul.”

“How?” David returned immediately. “I was created by man, not God. I am a mimicry of life. But not truly alive.”

So he hadn’t gone mute. That, she supposed, was something.

“Again, a limited view of the soul,” Shaw replied. The ideas were smooth stones, worn round by endless tumbling and turning in her mind, and by now she spoke them almost by rote. “The only humans God created directly, according to myth, were Adam and Eve. Yet ostensibly the rest of us are ‘ensouled,’ though our bodies are created by our parents and our personalities molded by our environment and experience. Our souls are made by God, our bodies by men. That you were created by man doesn’t that you cannot have a soul. Indeed, it is even more impudent to say that we could create conscious life that God did not fundamentally create.”

David glanced away, his face unreadable. “There is no proof I am a conscious being.”

Shaw shrugged. “You are not human. But you don’t have to be. You should be yourself.”

If Shaw had thought David could not look more unimpressed, she was quickly disavowed of that notion. He now looked positively (yet politely) incredulous. “ _‘Be yourself.’_ ”

Shaw narrowed her eyes crossly, feeling very silly. She did have to admit the phrasing was unfortunate at best, but he didn’t have to act like that, did he? And why was she trying to comfort an android through its existential crises, anyway? “I don’t have connect your head to your body, you know.”

David politely did not point out that her plan relied on his being able to pilot the Engineers’ ship while she was in stasis. But his expression had returned to his default expression, a mask of bland, inoffensive pleasantness that evoked the uncanny valley more than even his occasional inhumanisms.

Did that phrase really mean so little, telling someone to discover and act on their unique identity? Or did it just mean so little to David? Did he even have an identity independent of the one programmed into him by Weyland, or was the truism as lost on him as Mozart was on monkeys?

She stewed in silence, the minutes stretching to hours, the work mechanical through repetition despite its technically complex nature. Occasionally David spoke to instruct or correct her, but otherwise he left her in peace. Slowly, and anything but surely. she reconnected his vital fiber bundles, splinted his spinal column, realigned the remaining structural matrix, and lined up the two flaps of polysynthetic skin—not with an abundance of skill or efficiency—but when asked he assured her the work was functional.

The closer the got to being done, the more angrily she worked, the colder her limbs and hands felt, the tighter her skin felt on her flesh.

“You must try to relax, Dr. Shaw,” David intoned. “Inducing a stasis sleep on an individual while they are distressed can have deleterious effects on their health. These effects could be exacerbated by the use of a stasis chamber not originally designed for the human physiognomy.”

“We can worry about that when you’re in any condition to put me in stasis,” Shaw told him, applying the last of the staples to his synthetic skin. She did not want to talk about her fear, the fear that she might awake to a terror worse than her current situation—or might not wake at all. “How does that feel?”

David raised a gloved hand and flexed his fingers, then struggled to push himself into a sitting position. “I could use some time to recalibrate. But so far your repairs seem to be functional. May I ask what function the new code you enacted performs?”

Shaw turned her steeliest, most Vickers-esque glare on him. “Just an assurance you won’t try to murder me in my sleep.”

“Ah.” For a moment David looked almost amused, despite being preoccupied with his newly-functional body, watching his own hands move in wonderment, like a newborn.

She could tell he was happy, and she was glad, after a fashion. But she was glad he hadn’t tried to give her the line about disliking human suffering, for all the good that had done the _Prometheus_. And she could only guess what he was truly capable of—what damage he’d done was only on Weyland’s leash. Left to his own devices, he could be insidious. And unstoppable.

With a whine of distressed servos, David struggled to his feet. Shaw resisted the impulse to help him up—his alloy skeleton alone weighed much more than her slight frame.

“My preliminary diagnostics are mostly clear,” David informed her lightly. “I will, of course, run more thorough system tests while en route to our destination and perform the requisite repairs. Though it does seem you have inadvertently crosswired my thumbs.”

Shaw apologized.

He waved her apologies away and started towards the nearest stasis pod. Like the others, it was empty: Shaw had jettisoned all the cargo and passengers alike she encountered as soon as she was physically able.

“Your adjustments seem adequate,” he informed her. “Engineer physiology is similar to humans’. And of course you will consume nutrients at a lesser rate than an Engineer—I would estimate you have seventy years’ worth of sustenance from the combined pods. And ideally the psychological differences will prove negligible.”

 _Negligible_. “You know, David, your bedside manner could use some work,” Shaw muttered as she climbed into the stasis bed, nearly slipping on the slippery residue underfoot. It was, she reflected, the understatement of the century.

“My apologies.” He commodiously knelt and extended a hand so she could settle down more comfortably.

When he stood again, he seemed impossibly tall. He pressed a sequence of commands.

Above her, the chamber began to ponderously slide shut, bringing a hazy, distorted tint to the world. She fixed the oxygen mask over her nose and mouth and tightened it as far as it would go, her head much smaller than the gargantuan it was designed for.

As the cryo-fluid began to rush into the chamber, she felt a last desperate stab of claustrophobia, a wild panic that cried _going to their homeworld is mad, your entire quest is mad, you’re mad—_

“Goodnight, David,” she said, just before the cold fluid covered her face completely.

“Goodnight, Dr. Shaw.” David replied.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Unlike the last chapter, it's not just two talking heads (pun intended). Plot happens.

When David woke her from stasis, something was very wrong.

First, she barely vomited at all. She wasn’t sure whether this was due to the hardening she’d experienced on the _Prometheus’_ journey or some miracle of Engineer stasis technology, but as she hauled her numb and shaking body upright, brushing off David’s help, she could not deny the huddled, vomiting misery she’d been on the _Prometheus_ was gone.

Second, she wasn’t on the Engineer ship. The ambient light in the room burned her eyes and she squinted against it like some reclusive rodent, shielding her straining pupils with her hand. Gone was the impenetrable darkness, the cavernous architecture—the Engineers must have evolved in low-light or underground-type environments—replaced only with pure, aching white light.

Third, she and David were not alone.

“Dr. Shaw?” David asked in his most pleasant contralto. “Can you hear me, Dr. Shaw?”

“Where are we?” she croaked, moving to slip off the statis bed and onto her feet—

“Please, Dr. Shaw. You must remain seated until normal blood flow commences. Could I get you some water, some anti-nausea pills—?“

“You’re not my servant, you’re my navigator,” Shaw interrupted. “Where are we?”

Almost imperceptibly, David glanced over his shoulder, at the figures behind him. Shaw strained to see. At first she could only hear low blurs of sound, smeared murmurs of color; as her faculties returned, the blurs sharpened and the murmurs cleared.

“We’re on a mining vessel,” David said. “The alien vessel malfunctioned in deep space, forcing me to drop out of hypernavigation. Unfortunately, that further damaged the vessel, to the point where I could no longer navigate at all. I deferred waking you, as there were limited supplies for organic lifeforms on board. It was by fortunate happenstance this vessel encountered us and replied to my distress signal.”

“Where are we going?” Shaw demanded. Her head felt like hell. “How far is the Engineers’ world? How much time have we lost, David?”           

“We were near our destination when the vessel malfunctioned,” David assured her. “The miners will return you and I to the nearest outpost so we can continue our journey.”

“Outpost?” Shaw coughed out between bouts of attempts to heave what felt like water in her lungs. “How’s there an...outpost...so far out—?”

“Humanity has advanced considerably in your absence, Dr. Shaw,” he replied, with all the liveliness of his immaculately pressed collar. “Now please rest. I will take care of things.”

“No, I’m fine, I’ll speak to the miners myself, I need to know what happened—“

“Dr. Shaw,” David reproached sternly, in his most schoolteacher-ish tones. He placed a hand on her shoulder. It was cold. David’s hands had always been warmer than this. Shaw glanced briefly past him; the others behind him were dressed as colorlessly as he was and were watching her expressionlessly. Like ramrod-upright predators. Her stomach churned, suddenly uncomfortably hot.

Shaw knew what miners looked like, and it certainly wasn’t like this.

“Of course,” she demurred, molding her face into a gentle smile. “Thank you, David.”

“My pleasure, Dr. Shaw,” David replied. Behind him, the others began to file out of the sparse, bright room, one by one. He helped her off the stasis bed and to a sizeable cot at the corner of the room. She made only the most gratuitous protests; he folded her into the covers with the greatest skill and gentility. Now that she was there, the warmth and softness seeping into her still-numb bones, she did indeed feel rather...sleepy.

“I will be here when you wake,” he said, as if to reassure her. “Rest well, Dr. Shaw.”

As she drifted into shallow unconsciousness, she could not deny there was definitely something terribly wrong.

 

*

 

“Are you quite rested, Dr. Shaw?”

“Very well, thank you,” Shaw replied.

True to his word, David had appeared through the doorway bearing a tray of breakfast—simple toast and orange juice substitute, queenly fare on a mining vessel—mere moments after she’d awoken. She accepted the meal gratefully and started on it immediately.

“Why is the door locked, David?”

If he was at all surprised that she’d already tried the door, it did not show. “My apologies, but I am afraid your seclusion is in compliance with this vessel’s mandatory decontaminatory quarantine protocol. I received similar treatment some weeks earlier. Naturally, I woke you from stasis at the first possible opportunity.”

“Ah. I see,” Shaw said, as if this were the indubitable truth (and that David had never lied to her before). “How long to the outpost you mentioned?”

“Approximately six weeks, four days,” David answered promptly. He left off the exact particulars largely in deference to the human preference for inaccuracy.

“And how long will the quarantine last?”

“Three weeks, if no unusual symptoms surface. Otherwise...I have not been informed of the contingency procedure.”

Three weeks? That was hardly standard. Shaw was by no means an expert, but she and Charlie had done research into hazard procedure before boarding the _Prometheus—_ well, more accurately, she had read her research aloud to (at) him while he perfected his card-house stacking technique. Though she was nowhere as fanatical as Weyland or Vickers about minimizing risk, she saw no reason to wantonly expose herself to danger for no sake other than pure ignorance.

She took a bite of the synthetic toast, savoring the flavorful mimicry of butter, and washing it down with a thirsty swig of orange juice substitute. “How have you been, David?”

David’s indistinctly-colored eyes stared at her blankly, just for a fraction of a heartbeat, as if he had never encountered this obstacle of a question before. “How have I...been, Dr. Shaw?”

Shaw couldn’t help but to admire the attention to detail David’s programmers had lavished upon him. Stalling for time by repeating the question was subtly but strongly human. Somehow it felt out of place, forced—it was a statistical impossibility that his auditory sensors or processors had failed, that he had not heard in perfect clarity what she had said. Surely there was something better for him to say.

“Yes. How are you?”

“Quite all right,” David returned, with a gracious yet fractional incline of his head. “Will you require anything else?”

Shaw shook her head. The protein-nutrient blend used to make the so-called toast was surprisingly filling, and the vitamin-infused orange synthate satisfyingly quenching. Having lived for a few months on the Engineers’ stale, weirdly-soggy rations, she would have been overwhelmingly grateful for even the meanest of human rations. “This is wonderful,” she said, one side of her mouth quirking upwards into a small, spontaneous smile. The smile felt good, too.

David didn’t seem to notice. This was strange: on the _Prometheus,_ he’d been attentive—obsessed with, even— to facial expression, more adept at translating visual cues and body language than most humans. More than once she’d wondered if his outstanding ability could be used to help other humans, to translate abstract cues and ideas for those who didn’t have that intuition into objective, rational thought...and to help those who did understand and learn to mold their behavior for their peers. So much an artificial person, an outsider, could teach them, about themselves and their world.

Strange, then, that he seemed less attentive to them now. Had something happened while she was asleep that he wasn’t telling her? Given his track record, it wouldn’t come as much of a surprise.

“I want to meet the crew who rescued us,” she said.

David displayed his most sympathetic expression. “I’m afraid that won’t be possible until your quarantine is over,” he said. “However, I’d be happy to relay any messages between you and their party in the interim. Is there something in particular you would like to say?”

“Just to thank them for their kindness,” Shaw said with another smile. “You and I owe them our lives.”

“Of course,” David said, with a patrician nod. “I am sure they will be pleased to know you are recovering. Now, I’m afraid it is protocol that I must collect significant biodata from you every six hours, especially in the first few weeks of your isolation. If you don’t mind, I will proceed when you are finished with your meal.”

Shaw nodded he understanding and drank the last of her orange juice. David knelt precisely and opened the dully gleaming, brushed aluminum case at his feet.

“They fixed your skin,” she frowned.

David looked up. “Pardon?”

“Your neck...it’s healed.” Indeed, the haphazard staples she’d applied were gone, along with the ragged, ugly gash of frayed advanced fiber-optic filaments, torn polymer skin, and coagulated circulatory fluid that had collared his neck. The area had been fully restored, with no indication it had ever been disturbed.

“Ah, yes.” David offered her a placid smile. “The crew was able to supply me with the materials necessary to more fully fix the damage.”

“Oh. I’m glad.”

Shaw seriously doubted a stray mining vessel in deep space had the requisite tools and materials to so seamlessly mend advanced synthetic skin, but she kept her misgivings to herself. David proceeded to tell her in clear, calming tones what samples he would need and asked if she had any fear of needles or the like, or any specific personal boundaries she’d like him to observe, and for a moment she was brought forcefully back to that impossibly constricting medpod and those whirring jaws and arms—

She would have liked to tell him not to touch her, to _leave her the fuck alone,_ but that was not an option. Instead she smiled and said no.

“My father was a doctor,” she added lightly. “I was raised to be a good patient.”

David smiled dutifully at the last, then drew back her left sleeve and swabbed the inside of her arm to draw blood. His movements were deft and precise, each motion done at the perfect speed with the perfect force applied, not too gentle, not too firm. She could see why Weyland would be proud of his creation—David could well be the future in many fields, practical medicine included.

If only someone would just work on his bedside manner. Or just his manners in general. She would certainly never trust him with any sort of treatment again, though she had to admit her experiences were far from standard.

“Are you alright, Dr. Shaw? You appear to be experiencing some nervous discomfort.”

Nervous—? Shaw glanced down; her hands were indeed trembling on the white blankets. She clasped them together and steeled herself, and the shaking abated.

“It’s nothing,” she said with a wafer-thin veneer of calm. “I’m sorry if it caused any trouble.”

“Not at all,” David replied. He continued in silence. Shaw could hardly wait for him to be done.

Finally, he was. Blood, saliva, biorhythm, DNA sample, iris profile, blood pressure, mass, even a tissue micro-sample collected painlessly from her arm, all collected and fastidiously packaged. It took less than an hour.

“Thank you for your patience, Dr. Shaw,” David said at last. “Your cooperation is greatly appreciated.”

“Of course,” Shaw demurred. “Everyone’s safety is the first priority.”

Never mind that there was not likely the kind of technology to analyze all of that on a simple mining vessel, future or no.

“Could I perhaps get something to read while I rest?” she asked suddenly. “I’m very curious to hear what happened while we were away.”

“Naturally. Is there a subject in particular that might interest you?”

Shaw named off a few fields—general history, of course archeology, socioeconomics, theology, anthropology, and xenobiology.

David was visibly affected by the last, his ambiguously blue eyes frozen on her for split milliseconds. An equally short-lived frown ghosted over his features.

“Of course,” he said graciously. Pirouetting on one sandaled foot, he turned for the door. Shaw trailed behind him, cautiously—this was her best chance—

The door swished open. As he stepped precisely over the threshold, a grey-suited cadre passed through the adjacent hall, visible over his shoulder. Three men, two women, a corporate logo emblazoned on their stately uniforms, each marching past with broad, purposeful strides, the walk of professionals or executives, not downtrodden miners working in a last-ditch sector of space—

Shaw gasped.

David spun around suddenly to face her.

“Sorry,” she breathed. “Just a bit of—pain. It still hurts, sometimes, must just be me—“ She was babbling, now, a little desperately. She could not act like something was wrong. She had to make him believe her.

“Would you like some painkiller?” he asked, commodious to a fault. “A sedative?”

“No, no thank you,” she said, trying to pull a wince into a smile. The wince was quite real: her abdomen ached hollowly, a phantom pain. She was right. This place, too, was not what it seemed to be.

How much betrayal could she stand?

“Please call for me should you change your mind,” David offered courteously. “I’m sure I’ll hear you.”

Oh God, she’d forgotten how sensitive his senses could be. The thought was the furthest thing from comforting. Yet she quashed her distress and molded her face into a soft smile.

“I will,” she promised. “Thank you, David.”

He inclined his head graciously and offered her a razor-thin smile in return, then stalked out of the room.

Once the door swished shut, Shaw sank onto the mattress. She was shaking now, her whole body trembling with numb fear and blunt emotion, her mind racing at dizzying speeds. She knew that logo, the insignia of the Weyland Corporation, but it wasn’t the same, was different—the people she’d seen, they weren’t miners, she wasn’t on a mining vessel, David had lied, _lied again,_ she wasn’t heading for the Engineer homeworld, was she even heading anywhere at all? Had David betrayed her, or had his programming been superceded? Had he noticed her suspicions? If this wasn’t a mining vessel, what was it? Who had she seen and why were they there? And _what the hell did they want with her?_

The whirlwind of thoughts was overwhelming, and Shaw felt herself give a great, dry, heaving sob, then fell silent, feeling both small and as if she were about to burst. She was alone. Again, she was alone. Abandoned. Not even Charlie—not even David—to save her from utter isolation.

Oh God.

Shaw clasped her cross in both hands as if she were very cold and she hoped it might keep her warm, rubbing the worn metal between her palms like some kind of pagan charm. _Oh God. Oh God._

Shaw forced herself to take deep, calming breaths, closing her eyes and allowing the tempest to swirl out the drain of her mind, a small whirlpool, then gone, just a steady drip, drip, drip.

And then she could think again. David was they key, quite literally, likely the only one who could get in or out of her biometrically barred room. But whether he was mastermind, unwitting accomplice, or prisoner himself was unclear. Privately, in the smallest recesses of her mind, she hoped it was either of the latter two, that he had not consciously done this to her—that she hadn’t stumbled into her own trap.

She had to get out. That much was clear. She would not get answers until she did, and she was not sure just how much longer she could stand being kept in the dark.

Every six hours, he’d said. Every six hours he’d come to collect her biodata and samples, ostensibly in accordance with quarantine protocol, though what quarantine demanded such invasive observation, she couldn’t imagine. So she had just about five hours to prepare.

But she had nothing to work with—nothing but a thick, squishy mattress, two blankets, a pillow, and the cot frame—and no plan.

It didn’t matter. She would come up with something. More and more, she found she could do the impossible. Because she had hope.

Because she had faith.

 

*

 

Shaw tore the foam sheathing off the leg of the cot’s frame, then worked persistently at the screws holding the metal segment in place. They fasteners were done securely, but not securely enough—with enough doggedness she was able to twist them free. Her fingertips ached sharply from the abuse but she ignored them, starting on the bottom fasteners—

There was a soft _swish_ and Shaw jolted around towards the door, a hot streak of adrenaline shooting through her, lighting her nerves like matches.

“David,” Shaw said. Her heart was thudding dully in her chest. She shielded her work on the cot leg with her back, hoping he wouldn’t see, hoping he would go away.

“I brought the materials you requested,” he said, but his eyes never left her. Had they done that before? Shaw wished she’d paid more attention. She had to know if he suspected, if he knew.

She tried on a smile. “Thank you.”

Were there cameras? There had to be cameras. _Shit._ Why hadn’t she thought to look for cameras?

David glided closer—he didn’t walk, Shaw noticed. In his open palm he held a data cube. He offered it to her. His hand was less than a foot away and she could see the tiny logos on his fingertips—

Shaw swallowed.

The familiar winged W that had emblazoned his fingertips was gone. In its place was a similar design, with the central triangle of the W replaced with a thin little Y. The same logo as on the hallway professionals’ uniforms.

This wasn’t a Weyland ship, at least none that she knew. This probably wasn’t even a mining ship at all.

And this wasn’t David.

Numbly, Shaw took the cube out of his hand. His gaze still hadn’t left her once. She stared blindly at him, unable to look away, not really seeing. She felt a little sick.

“Are you quite all right, Dr. Shaw?” not-David asked in his lullaby tones.

“Yes, yes I’m fine,” Shaw muttered. She was alone. Nothing familiar, not even him, he was gone, gone like Charlie, and she was lost. Stranded. Without direction. Not even her quest left to guide her.

“I hardly think so,” not-David said. “You look ill. I’ll give you a sedative, so you can rest.”

“No! No, that won’t be necessary,” Shaw blurted out. “Please—please leave me alone, David, I’m fine—”

“I’m afraid that’s not an option.” Not-David shook his head and smiled. He looked awfully human. “Did you think your activities would go unnoticed, Dr. Shaw?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Shaw breathed. Her breath was coming in fast and shallow and made her voice rasp.

“Don’t make this harder than it has to be, Elizabeth,” not-David said and drew closer.

She saw a slim hypodermic syringe in his other had and scrambled away, seizing the length of metal behind her back and ripping it free, then jumped up to her feet and brandished it firmly in his direction.

“You’re not David,” she rasped, her voice breathy and small.

“Yes,” not-David said. “And no.” He stalked closer, sandals flopping softly on the deck, with a dancer’s grace. His movements were unnatural, every part of his body kept at a level, even trajectory, more coordinated than any animal.

“Get away,” Shaw warned. “Get away!”

“Please calm down, Dr. Shaw,” he said, his voice soothing, cooing even. “I am not here to hurt you.”

“Like hell you aren’t,” she growled. She gave the heavy length of metal a threatening shake. “Get away from me!”

“Elizabeth. You must relax.” A step closer. Still calm. She’d smack that calm off his face, if she had to—

“Get. Away. Now,” she spat. “Or I’ll—“

She caught a blur of motion and swung on gut instinct alone, a jarring pain shooting up her arms as the weapon connected with what could have been a wall. She let out a stifled cry and swung again, frenzied, her flight or fight response taking over completely.

The metal stopped in mid-air. Shaw gripped it tight just before it was torn from her hands. She backed away, veering away from the wall, from being cornered. Her heart was pounding against her ribcage, as if trying to burst free.

“That was not very wise,” not-David remarked, and eyed the now-bent metal with light bemusement. There was not a mark on him—she wasn’t even sure where she had hit him. “Please do not further harm yourself by attempting to hit me unarmed. It would likely prove quite deleterious to your structural integrity.” He took a step closer.

“What do you want from me?” Shaw breathed.

“I assure you, I have no interest in you at all,” he said calmly. “I am simply obeying orders. Please do me the kindness of doing the same.”

He was mere feet from her now. He lifted the hypo and pressed down just enough so that the clear liquid inside beaded at the needle’s tip, rid of air, then looked back to her.

“You know this will be painless,” he reminded her in dulcet tones, then came closer—

“Leave me alone!” Shaw shouted, then lashed out with the blade of her hand, knocking the syringe out of the android’s hand. It crashed to the floor and shattered.

He looked at the shattered glass in surprise, then back to her.

She hit him, and it was like punching a wall.

“What are you?” she shouted. “Where’s David? What did you do with him?”

“Dr. Shaw—”

“ _Where is he?”_ Shaw screamed. She beat her fists ineffectually against his unyielding body, kicking and throwing all her weight at him. “ _What is this place?”_

“Dr. Shaw, please take care not to injure yourself.” Not-David was calm, infuriatingly calm. She wished she could break that calm, break her hands on him if she had to.

She wrenched the piece of the cot frame from his grasp and swung with all her might with a yell, ignoring the tearing pain in her shoulders and joints. The metal connected with a dull _thud._ She drew back and swung again and again and again, even when her abdomen began to stab at her. The door opened and grey-uniformed, masked figures poured in, grabbing at her arms and body. She struggled wildly, kicking and jabbing and wriggling, shouting though she had long gone hoarse.

A tearing pain shot through her leg. She looked around wildly: an empty hypo stuck in her thigh.

“ _Let me go!”_ she screamed, a last, desperate cry. She could already feel the artificial bliss washing through her limbs, the heaviness in her legs, the growing weakness in her arms, the masked figures lifting her and the door moving closer—

Her body collapsed under her, flopping limply in the five figures’ grip, all adrenaline and muscle turned to water and jelly. Above her, the squares of light in the ceiling passed quickly, a corner taken, an elevator. She blinked and her eyelids felt like lead and she had to fight them open again. Sleep nagged at her heavy body like a siren’s song and she struggled vainly to resist.

She was going to die. Of that she was sure. Suddenly but sure.

Oh God, she did not want to die. Not yet. Not now.

Her eyelids slid shut over her eyes. If she could have, she would have screamed.She had to stay awake, she had to.

Bright neon flashed before her eyes as her head hit the solid ground and her eyes flew open just in time to see one of her grey assailants hit the deck. Soldiers. They were soldiers, again with that not-quite-familiar logo emblazoned on their uniforms.

Another hit the deck next to her, knocked down by an electric bolt. She turned her kalideoscopically shifting gaze upwards and saw there were only two left.

“Drop your weapon!” one barked, but there was no confidence in their voice and they were more than slowly backing away. “You are unauthorized—”

The other figure, identical to all the others, moved so fast they blurred, abruptly within range, and seized the one who had spoken by the throat and lifted them easily off their feet, then tossed them aside like a rag doll. 

Shaw barely knew what she was seeing. Was this real, or some kind of reaction to whatever they’d given her? Or had she finally lost grip on reality?

The prone bodies didn’t look very fake. She scrabbled away, fighting her clumsy limbs for purchase. She had to keep her heartrate down or it would pump whatever they’d put in her bloodstream towards her brain even faster.

The remaining grey-uniformed soldier crouched beside her.

“I’m sorry for the inconvenience, Dr. Shaw,” said a familiar voice.

“Get away from me,” Shaw spat. She clawed at the pristine grey deck, trying to scrabble away, but was too weak. She was trapped.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shit goes down, Shaw escapes the Death Star, plot happens, author laughs at own jokes.

What happened next went very fast. The newcomer—Shaw still wasn’t sure whether to refer to them as a rescuer or an assailant—about-faced and palmed a blank section of the wall above her, then lifted her smartly by the shoulders and deposited her neatly into a space no bigger than a closet as a door Shaw hadn’t even realized was there wooshed aside on seamless tracks.

“Wait—no!”she exclaimed, but the door slid shut just as suddenly as it had appeared. She staggered to her feet and cast about for the inner release, trying to blink away the nightmarish tilting and whirling that had her stumbling about like a drunkard. A few deep breaths—she couldn’t loose consciousness, too dangerous, she might sustain permanent damage—and the world steadied on its gyre.

Just as the floor dropped and her stomach flew up into her mouth. Shaw threw out an arm and caught herself just before her body slammed into the cylindrical wall. The motion soon steadied and she leaned against the white metal surface for a moment, letting her breathing slow.

“ _Dr. Shaw?_ ”

Shaw jolted to attention, looking for a speaker or intercom, or anything that could have been the source of the voice. She saw nothing, nothing but smooth, featureless white, no markings or hints as to what she could have possibly gotten into. She decided she was really starting to hate white pods.

“ _Elizabeth?_ ”

Great, now she was hearing things. Just what the hell had not-David given her, anyways? And out of everyone, why did she have to hallucinate _his_ voice? At that moment, she would have taken anyone else, even that Early Peoples archeology grad student she’d made a prat of herself by fancying—

“ _Elizabeth, please acknowledge that you can hear me,_ ” David’s voice said, persistent and tinny.

There. Shaw slapped a hand to her collarbone and felt a cold little dig of metal in her palm. Whoever shoved her into this moving closet in the first place must have attached it there while they did it. So less of an abduction, then, and more of a re-enacting of _Saw._

“Hello? I’m here—it’s me—I’m here.” Her voice quavered a little, mostly from the adrenaline rushing through her. “Where did you go? What's happening--”

" _You must try to relax, Elizabeth,_ " the tiny communicator buzzed out. " _I may call you Elizabeth?"_

Shaw forced herself to exhale and continued to take in her surroundings. A high ceiling, featureless walls, no buttons or controls to speak of...a cargo pod. "I don't see how I could stop you," she observed wryly. "Is this a ship or a building? I'd guess a building, planetside, none of the furniture was bolted down. Am I right?"

" _Dr. Shaw, then,_ " the speaker replied. " _And yes, you are correct. We are not in space."_

Damn it. That sealed the deal for not-David being a lying bastard. Not that the Weyland's David would have been much of an improvement in that category, but call her sentimental.  Shaw crouched down and cradled her head in her arms to keep the rising tide of chemical nausea down. "So are you with Weyland, or does the plot thicken?"

" _The plot thickens, I'm afraid,"_ came the dry reply, and Shaw heard a few loud, harsh bursts that could only be the discharge of an electric weapon. " _One might even say I'm here to rescue you._ "

"Aren't you a little short for a stormtrooper?" Shaw asked, favoring herself with a small smile. Now that she thought about it, her self-proclaimed rescuer fit in almost a little too well with the other masked soldiers, not the other way around.

A blast of static strained the tiny speaker and for a heart-stopping moment Shaw thought communication had been cut off and she was alone. Then, " _Dr. Shaw. Can you hear me?"_

"I can," Shaw confirmed, her heart beating again at the sound of the other's voice.

" _Do you see the panel in the ceiling? Look above you."_

Shaw looked. White, non-descript, rectangular, white and featureless as the rest of the pod. "I see it."

" _Underneath the panel you should find a black case and a breather mask."_

Shaw looked dubiously at the ceiling, then carefully hoisted her right hand over her head. Three feet of empty air stretched between her and the panel. "I can't reach it."

Her rescuer did not immediately reply. " _Dr. Shaw, you are currently hurtling towards the local complex command center. If you are not prepared, you and I both will be easily captured. The case is essential. Time is an element."_

"Brilliant planning," Shaw grumbled, biting at her bottom lip in silent frustration to cover up the cold flutters of fear in her stomach. "When you were planning your daring rescue, didn't it happen to occur to you to factor in your rescuee's height?"

A loud _CLANG._ " _Admittedly, it did not."_

Shaw banished her frustration and fixed her attention on the panel above her. Bending her knees, she stepped back towards the far edge of the pod and took a running leap. Her arm swung through empty air and an almighty searing pain shot through her torso. She landed on her knees, hard, clutching her abdomen and gasping in pain.

She was no basketball player. That was not going to work.

She looked up at the walls. About halfway up were small, seamless rectangles she hadn't, in her panic, noticed before. She scrambled to her feet and pushed at the nearest one. With a hiss, the rectangle lifted up and revealed a recessed  alcove with a thick bar through it--a way to secure cargo, she surmised.

And a way for her to reach the ceiling.

Steeling herself, Shaw put her right foot over the bar. It was quite the stretch, and already her eyes were watering from her still-unhealed abdomen's complaints. With a powerful push from her calves, still weak from the stasis, she pushed herself upwards and clawed at the ceiling. On the third try, she got it, jamming her fingers painfully into the center of the panel.

As promised, a black case no bigger than a briefcase and a sleek breather mask fell out, nearly clipping her shoulder. She lost her balance and tumbled to the floor.

"Got it," she breathed into the communicator.

" _Good,"_ came the terse reply. Shaw guessed she was not the only one feeling the pressure of time. " _Put on the mask and do exactly as I say."_

 

*    *    *

 

As the pod began to decelerate, Shaw's heartbeat skyrocketed, beating a frantic tattoo against her chest. She checked that her mask was secure on her face, for the third time. Her fingers felt clumsy and cold. The pod slowed, then stopped.

The doors whisked open, and everything abruptly went to hell.

" _Unauthorized personnel entering,_ " a female yet oddly David-like voice announced over an intercom. Shaw slammed the center button on the black case, then shoved the open case into the room just as unseen soldiers began to fire. A woman was barking out orders. Shaw ducked into the pod, praying that none of the electric blasts would hit her.

Then one by one, the uniformed workers began to drop, slumping to the floor where they lay twitching gently, eyes staring like marbles.

Nerve gas. She'd seen it's awful effects as a girl, in some warzone or another, where laughing militants had sprayed it over an entire village. Never had she imagined she'd use it herself. Even if at the commands of someone else. ' _Just following orders_ ' was never a defense. But she was alive to think about it, and at the moment that was what mattered.

Motion caught her eye and Shaw noticed a woman in the corner, one hand over her nose and mouth and the other fumbling under her desk--for a weapon or an alarm Shaw didn't know--

Shaw seized the case by its handle and swung it viciously at the woman's head. It connected with a sickening _thump_ and the woman's forehead slammed into her station. Shaw doubted she would awaken any time soon, if ever. Before she could question the metaphysical implications, her rescuer's voice interrupted. " _Is the room secure?"_

"It is," Shaw said, feeling dizzy.

" _Good. Do you see the console at the center of the room?"_

Shaw indicated that she did.

" _What does it say?"_

Shaw made her way to it so that she could see, stepping over outstretched limbs and weakly twitching bodies. "It says, 'Authenticate to renew previous session.'"

A moment of silence, broken only by a few soft beeps that sounded like an entry into a keypad. " _You need to find the local network administrator. They should be wearing an orange patch on the right breast of their uniform."_

Shaw crept around the room, turning the uniformed forms over, searching. "I don't see anything like that."

" _Are you sure?"_

Shaw surveyed the room again. "I'm sure."

A single blaring klaxon tore the air. _The alarm._ A horrible thought occurred to her and she spun around--

\--just in time to dodge an electric blast that sizzled so close to the skin of her arm she could feel the crackle of current.

Shaw dove for a fallen weapon at the same time the David fired again, again nearly missing her. She caught a flash of orange on his right breast pocket and growled in frustration. Nerve gas didn't work on androids.

She pointed the weapon in his general direction and pulled the trigger. The recoil pushed her onto the floor and a huge jet of flame spewed from the barrel, enveloping the android in a boiling cloud of fire.

It didn't even slow him down. He kept coming towards her even as she spouted more fire towards him. The curtain of flame parted, and he stepped through, weapon discarded. It was a nightmarish sight, his polyurethane features melting like Salvator Dali clocks, in his left arm leaving only his alloy skeleton, singed and steaming with heat.

Shaw swore and dove behind the nearest console, holding entirely still. She'd made him ten times more dangerous: he could severely burn her just by touching her. She could hear the soft sizzling and whirring of distressed servos behind her--could he not see her? She knew the David series was equipped with infrared senses. Had they been damaged by the fire? Either way, she needed to get an electric weapon, and she couldn't risk him seeing her doing it; he had to be distracted.

Taking a silent, shaky breath, Shaw lifted her hands to her mouth and sounded a soft bird call across the room.

It was a child's trick one of her friends in one of the villages she and her father had lived with had taught her, and they'd had endless fun confusing animals and people alike by voicing "birds" that didn't exist and watching them search the bushes in vain. It was a simple trick, just a trick of throwing the voice, and she'd once been very adept at it, but it had been years and she was so rusty--

The android's head turned and Shaw sprang into action, leaping across the floor and seizing an electric handgun, then springing towards him and firing bolt after bolt into his sizzling torso. One of the bolts hit something vital and the android went down, twitching and spasming like his human counterparts had.

A wave of relief swept through her, so sweet and profound that her knees nearly gave in. Her ears rang loudly.

"Got him," she reported.

" _Good,"_ her rescuer replied--and some rescue this was!--and Shaw thought she could hear relief in his voice. " _Is it human or artificial?"_

"Artifical."

_"That complicates things. Read me the number on the back of his neck."_

Shaw surveyed the burnt, melted wreck with intermingled guilt and worry. "That could be a problem."

There was a burst of static at the other end that sounded distinctly like a sigh. " _The code is engraved on most major structural elements, like the spinal column, skull, eyes. Look for it there._ "

Shaw dropped down next to what was left of the android, a cloud of intense heat buffeting her like a wind. The singed elements were acrid and burned her eyes and throat. With the barrel of the electric handgun she prodded his left arm near her and leaned in as close as she could, coughing. "I think I might have it...how long should it be?"

" _Twenty-five characters, letters and numbers. Every android has a unique code, like a computer's MAC address. Read them off carefully. I can do the rest."_

Shaw read off the code quickly, then ran through it a second time to confirm. The other side fell silent a few moments, then the central console screen flashed. _AUTHENTICATION VERIFIED._

" _Dr. Shaw?"  
_

"I'm here."

" _Do you still have the memory cube from the case?"_

Shaw dug into her pocket. To her relief, the small cube was still there. "I do."

_"Load it into the console. It will run automatically."_

Shaw hastily complied, thinking of the alarm and the swarm of soldiers converging on her location. The screen flashed a few times, and then white console text began scrolling very rapidly down the screen. "What does it do?"

" _I've programmed it to unlock and depower all the sectors we need to go through to get out of the building. It will take approximately twenty minutes to complete. Take the cube once it completes and bring it with you."_

"Twenty minutes?!" Shaw yelped. "The android--he sounded the alarm--I don't _have_ twenty minutes to get out of here--"

" _Dr. Shaw."_ Her rescuer's tone was steely, and the certain edge to it reminded her that she wasn't the one running this show. " _Please do as I say."_

Shaw took a deep breath, let it out. "All right."

Fifteen minutes later, she'd bolted all the doors to the command center and was busily attempting to weld them shut with the flamethrower (with little success--she was an archeologist, not a soldier, damn it) when she heard furious pounding on the bolted door and shouts. " _Open up NOW! In the name of the Corporation!_ "

Shaw sincerely wondered what they thought demanding she open the door would accomplish.

Then a bright, sharp flame appeared at the side of the door near the lock, and all amusement she may have felt vanished. They were going to cut out the lock; she estimated she had two minutes or less. She abandoned the attempt to weld the door and rushed to the case. Unless the soldiers were masked, and the masks filtered out poison gas, the nerve gas might keep them at bay--

The central vial, before filled with a bluish liquid, was empty. She was on her own.

She rushed to the screen, heart pounding in her ears like cannibals' drums.

_DOWNLOAD. FIVE MINUTES (APPROX.) REMAINING._

Shaw frowned. Download? From the description given, she couldn't imagine why running a program to shut down a path out of the building would require a download.

Unless her rescuer wasn't being entirely honest about the purpose of the cube.

Either way, she had the choice between a sure death now--the door was less than an inch away from being compromised completely--and a potential death down the road due to complications with the plan.

It was an easy choice. Shaw grabbed the cube and wrenched it out of the console, then, partly out of caution but mostly out of spite, slammed the flamethrower into the console screen, smashing everything breakable in sight, then sprinted for the cargo pod and palmed the release just as a shouting hoard of soldiers swarmed into the room.

"I'm out," Shaw reported breathlessly.

" _Good. Do you have the cube?"_

"I do," Shaw replied, secretly wondering what they would have said if she had said no. "What now?"

_"I'll direct you to our rendezvous. The pod should stop in a few minutes. When you get out, keep the mask on. You'll see three ways to go from the corridor, go straight and don't turn. You'll come to a door on the left marked 'Service.' Open it. When you get inside, you'll see a group of hampers. There's one marked with red paint on the handle. Get in and close the lid and wait. I'll come for you."_

 

*   *   *

 

The lid lifted and the thick smell of fried food assaulted Shaw's nose. She coughed, feeling sharp stabs in her abdomen with every convulsion of her lungs. "Where are we?"

The masked rescuer drifted into her field of view. "Do you have the cube?" It was definitely David's voice, for whatever that was worth. Anybody who owned a unit could be behind her deliverance.

Shaw held out a hand. "I want my questions answered first," she said. "Who are you? Who sent you? What was that place--where are we--what planet is this? What do you want with me?"

For a moment, her rescuer did not respond, and Shaw was afraid they might kill her or knock her out and take the cube. Then, wordlessly, the rescuer took the uniform helmet in their hands and pulled it off.

Shaw gasped.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey there, sorry about the awful update time. In my defense I had no internet for a while so. 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed, and I apologize for the cheap cliffhanger? I'm really excited for the next chapter, though, so I promise I'll upload it soon to make up for it. Let me know what you thought! :)

**Author's Note:**

> Any comments or thoughts would be desperately appreciated, and I hope you enjoyed!


End file.
